Spending New Years in Tokyo with the boys and a couple of weekend trips to Mie and Nagano meant January passed me by before I could blink. Heres what filled in the rest of the blanks in the month
10 January - Coming of Age Ceremony
Seijinshiki (or coming of age ceremony) is held around the second Monday of January in order to congratulate and encourage those who have reached the mature age of 20 over the past year and help them realise that they have become adults. After my weekend in Mie seeing some of the youth there all dressed up, I attended Sakai's coming of age ceremony on the public holiday Monday. It was very interesting to see the contrast between the traditional kimonos and the crazy hairstyles / pop culture of the youth these days not paying attention to the ceremony and texting, talking and looking at purikura throughout.
Nabe Parties
Being the middle of winter (and now that I have a blanket for my kotatsu) seemed the perfect excuse to have people over for nabe (because its way more fun with friends than eating by yourself! So Mindy, Kozone-san, Tom and Jen all came over on seperate occassions to enjoy the deliciousness of Japanese hot pot
Kiwi English Classes
I had done a lot of prep in December for my Kiwi English classes and it paid off as my first one was on the 6th of January (mere days after I got back from my New Years trip). Classes run once a week on Thursdays until the 10th of March and covers mostly travel English, with a few New Zealand quirks thrown in there for good measure
26 - 27 January - Diplomats Study Tour to Sakai
Id like to say that I spent most of January preparing for this but unfortunately I wasnt given a lot of the concerte information until the week of this event (but Im getting better at dealing with things at short notice these days). As a result of the presentation I did at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last November we were lucky enough to have 15 Ambassadors coming out for two days to see what all the hype about Sakai was. We took them to the Sakai Soccer (Football) National Training centre, the Knife Museum, Mega Solar Power Generation Plant, Green Front Sakai Industrial Centre, Sharp LCD Manufacturing Plant, the tomb of Emporer Nintoku, the Bicycle Museum and for a spot of green tea at Daisen Park as well as a presentation and reception on their first night. Phew! It was a pretty intense couple of days but everything went pretty smoothly even though I had to interpret some pretty technical stuff we built up a good rapport with the Ambassadors and I think they all had a great time getting out of Tokyo for a couple of days
30 January - Portuguese Cooking Class and Handball Tournament
Just for something different (and to get a look at how someone else runs a cooking class before my next one in March) I took part in a Portuguese Cooking Class on the last Sunday in January with Tsuda-san and her sister. It wasnt too difficult, but playing in a handball tournament that afternoon after a few glasses of red wine with lunch was a bit of a challenge but it felt good to get back out on the court
And before I knew it January was over, cant believe theres only three weeks until Stuart come back to visit for a month. February will be busy too and at this pace my last six months here will go by incredibly fast - better start finally using up some of my annual leave...
